


Intoxicating

by DesertLily



Series: Whumptober 2020 [18]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Mental Health Issues, The Lonely Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, spoilers for seasons 1-4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily
Summary: True happiness had alluded Martin for most of his life. Then he started working at the Magnus Institute. Then he started making friends. Then he fell in love.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Whumptober 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946296
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Intoxicating

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'depression' promptt for Whumptober

There is nothing as intoxicating as sadness. One single second of the emotion could have you spiralling and spiralling and spiralling until you felt as if you lost yourself entirely. Until you were buried so deeply beneath your emotions it felt as if you would never get out. It was as if despair was going to be never ending. It never went away, not entirely, but there were ways to keep it docile; to keep the unending sadness at bay. 

It was an emotion Martin Blackwood knew well. He had been twelve when he first realised there was something wrong. He had never really been able to make friends at school; always stuck on the outside or ignored or just plain bullied. A feat that wasn’t aided by the fact he attended an all-girl’s school as he started to realise he wasn’t a girl. He never had been. Not really. Martin had gotten himself kicked out of the school shortly after before his mum enrolled him into a local school. He had hoped things would be better there! But they weren’t! They never were! The bullying was just as bad. 

Martin was fifteen when he stopped forcing himself to smile. He stopped insisting to himself that he was okay. Because he wasn’t. How could he be? He was as good as friendless, in the middle of his GCSES, and practically the carer for his mother (who also happened to despise him). He was exhausted all the time. He had no energy for anything anymore. Perhaps that was why he did so questionably on his exams. Especially as his teachers used to praise him on his cleverness, but that had long since stopped. No one praised Martin for anything anymore. Not that he saw himself as deserving of it. 

Martin was twenty-six when he started working at the Magnus Institute. For the first time in his life, he felt like he could breathe. It wasn’t the grandest job in the world - he just worked in the library. It was actually quite interesting sifting through various books relating to the supernatural each day. It was fun, even. He had made the hard decision of getting his mother set up in a care home. It made him feel far better than it should. Without her sneerding down on him and criticising his every move, he felt...happier. It helped that the institute paid well. It covered the cost of T and when he was twenty-eight, he finally had enough saved up for top surgery. He managed to stay happy. For a while. 

Martin was twenty-nine when he began to work in the archives. He hadn’t expected to get the job, quite frankly. All the qualifications on his application were fake ones that apparently no one had bothered to check. The entire interview had been tense before ending with Elias Bouchard shaking his hand and informing him that Martin was a  _ perfect _ fit for the job in the archives. It would be years before Martin realised Elias had chosen him because he would make good cannon fodder. 

It was in the archives that Martin would finally meet three of the most important people in his life (even if he didn’t know it yet): Tim, Sasha, and Jon. Tim and Sasha would go on to becoming his best friends. Whilst Jon...Jon would go on to own Martin’s heart entirely. From the moment they met, he had felt  _ something _ . Just a small crush on his boss. It wasn’t  _ that _ bad. Only it didn’t stay small for long. Even if Jon did act as if he despised the ground Martin stood on. Martin was used to people feeling like that towards him at this point. So he pined in private as his friends teased him ruthlessly for it ( and God, it was nice to have friends). The job was...interesting. Researching and following up on statements regarding the supernatural. It all seemed a little bit odd to him, but he was being paid enough not to question it. 

Then Martin met Jane Prentiss and marked it as the exact moment his life truly began to go downhill. He had experienced fear before - of course he had! He was only human! - but seeing the woman infested with worms had terrified him. She was so unnatural; illogical even. She shouldn’t have existed yet there she was.  _ And Jane Prentiss followed him home _ . Martin spent two weeks scared, alone, and certain that he was going to die as she knocked endlessly upon his door. Then...just as quickly as she had arrived, Prentiss left. 

Naturally, he had to give a statement about the incidence. Jon was surprisingly gentle about it. It was probably the most sincere he had been towards Martin since they had met. He seemed genuinely concerned. Especially when he offered to let Martin stay in the archives. Things improved between them then. Excluding the worms that started to infest the archives, things went well for a while. 

The day of the Prentiss attack was a whirlwind in Martin’s memory - partially due to trauma, CO2 and the absolute insanity of the situation. All he knew was that Prentiss was dead, they had found Gertrude Robinson’s body, and something about Sasha seemed...different. Martin slowly began to find himself spiralling again as the consuming sadness began to creep back into his life once more. 

Jon grew more and more paranoid. Tim grew more and more angry. Sasha was...startlingly calm. And Martin? Martin was just tired. Things just kept going wrong and he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He felt as if he was being smothered at every given opportunity. He wanted to stand up for Jon; stand by him but his actions were growing inexcusable. Especially after Martin found out he had been spying on all of them. It was...too much. It was far too much. Then it turned out Sasha had been replaced by some horrifying monstrosity and that someone had been brutally pipe murdered in Jon’s office. (Though Martin never believed that Jon had been the one to do it - even if the others did). 

Then Jon was gone. It was him and Tim in the archives. No Jon. No Sasha. No communication. The two barely talked. Even when he tried to, Tim had no time for Martin anymore. He was bitter and angry and quite frankly? It was unnerving. Then Melanie started working at the Archives (despite Martin insisting it was a terrible idea). At least she occasionally talked to him. Jon finally came for a while. Until he was gone again. Nothing in his life felt permanent anymore. Martin just felt like he was in the background; like a jigsaw piece used to fill in the occasional gaps and holes in someone else’s life. 

Just to make things even better, he found out that not only was the man murdered in Jon’s office Jurgen Leitner, Elias had killed both him  _ and  _ Gertrude Robinson, and now an ex-police officer was being blackmailed into working in the archives. Great! Oh! Martin almost forgotten about the fear entities that existed - including the one that he apparently helped serve by working at the institute! The Beholding! Wonderful! If Martin wasn’t spiralling before then he was now. Everything was just...too much. Everything was going wrong and he felt helpless. Useless even. 

Then the Unknowing happened. Martin was glad he wasn’t there. Not because he was fearful for his own life, but because he couldn’t have handled being in the same place Tim died. Because he did die. Now both of his best friends were dead and Jon  _ should _ have been dead but he was in a coma. Martin couldn’t remember the last time he had been happy anymore. 

This was followed by Martin making his biggest mistake. He got Elias Bouchard arrested. Looking back on it, he wouldn’t have made that mistake twice. Because whilst Elias deserved to be locked away, his replacement ruined Martin’s life. Peter Lukas. Peter always insisted that he was  _ helping _ Martin or just ‘acting in his best interest’ by making Martin his assistant. But he knew the truth. Peter was encouraging his loneliness; feeding off of his anguish. And Martin let him. Because Jon and his friends were gone and he had nothing left to lose anymore. He let himself be isolated as Peter assured him he was doing the right thing; that he was keeping everyone safe. 

Jon woke up and...and nothing changed. Why would it? Martin was still Peter’s assistant. He still had to keep himself isolated. He wasn’t supposed to think about Jon - least of all interact with him. But Martin missed him. He missed Jon’s soft chuckles or the slight smile he would offer whenever Martin made him tea.  _ He missed being wanted.  _ But that was the point, wasn’t it? That was how he was supposed to serve the Lonely! 

It was almost too late. That overwhelming sadness had begun to consume the entirety of him. He couldn’t really register anything anymore. He was lost and alone and...and...there was someone calling to him. There was something looking for him. But that couldn’t be right. He was useless Martin Blackwood. His mother’s disappointment. The last of his friends. Unwanted. But the voice kept calling to him and he  _ knew _ that voice. It was like he could see again. Like everything was becoming clear again. 

That was when Martin learnt the most important lesson of his life. No matter what happened or how much he lost himself, he would always have Jon and Jon would always have him. Because Jon  _ cared _ when he had been so convinced no one could. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated or hmu @ desert-lily on tumblr!


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